"The Less Obvious Flaws of Zero Mission"

I'm assuming that reading this review, you have sufficient knowledge on the Metroid games, and do not require any background information for the series (which you can easily find even on this site). This game will be rated according to its own merit, although it will reflect what is expected of a Metroid game in the year 2004. Comparison to previous games in the series is inevitable.

I will start by saying that Zero Mission is not a bad game, but it falls victim to the shallow methods of development of many modern games. Allow me to elaborate...most developers in this age have the misconception that a game is the sum of its parts. Good graphics, music, sound effects, etc, make a good game. Little do they realize, or admit, that a game's greatness comes from how well its components come together. Here, Nintendo seemed to love dissecting. The developers seem to have thought to themselves, ''What were the best parts of past Metroid games?''-and attempted to cram them together here. However, they seem to miss the core element of Metroid (along with the core of Zelda, it seems.) Sure, Zero Mission has good graphics, control and maze-like environments which are a trademark of past games, but like Fusion, it misses the point. Metroid is all about atmosphere-absorbing the player in its rich world leaking with secrets and mystery. I have not played Metroid Prime, but out of the 2-D Metroids, I can easily say that Super Metroid is the best realized. It has flawless control, a great premise, masterful level design, and subtle graphical touches, which are all the recipe of a great atmosphere-but the way all of these elements combine is what makes it a classic.

Contrary to popular belief, I do not think that Zero Mission's greatest flaw is its length; for I have not even bothered to finish the game at the time of this writing...OK, I'm only kidding. The game seemed to drag on for me, although the last part was thankfully interesting (yet a bit frustrating). Usually though, Zero Mission feels forced and saturated. Let us compare this to Super Metroid for a better understanding. Super starts off in an exciting space station, which soon blows up. Upon landing on Zebes, in your intricately-detailed ship, you immediately observe the harsh atmosphere, due to the clouds and the rain. You run through mossy ground, and open the first 'door'. Inside, eerie music plays, while small creatures cower away from your footsteps. The place seems vacant...and you feel alone. Later through the game, you discover that the underground passages of Zebes form a world of its own, with many strange beings. Zero Mission, after a brief sequence of your ship landing, and a couple of (almost) still frames, pits you directly inside the planet. However, this is somewhat excusable, since that is what the original Metroid did, and this IS a remake. It must be noted that with the release of Super Metroid came a drastic change of direction in the Metroid series (which I believe was for the far better). You were no longer victimized by your enemies as much, since greater agility and the ability to shoot in all 8 directions gave you control during battles. Although this made the game easier, it did so in the right ways, by taking out the cheapness and much of the frustration from the first two Metroid games. Additionally, the new direction allowed for better, more interesting enemies, since the designers were no longer limited by what they could throw at the player (as before the player would not be able to fight them due to speed, weak points, etc.). Zero Mission, however, uses far too many of the original's enemies-which are no longer challenging to fight (or interesting for that matter). The original Metroid was strictly a top-down, left-right game, since first-generation NES games did not have the capacity for diagonal scrolling. Unfortunately, Zero Mission inherits much of its ancestor's limitation. Almost all of the round curves on the ground seem forced, and completely unnecessary, as Zero Mission retains a very uninspiring zigzag pattern for the player. You move through long stretches of corridors on the X-axis, and then briefly drop in the Y-axis, after resuming your X-axis approach, (although in the opposite direction). Perhaps I am the only person which felt this, but I am convinced that the game's areas could have been MUCH better. Whereas Super Metroid had 'doors' on the floor and ceiling, Zero Mission does not (although you get to destroy the ceiling/floor all too often).

Speaking of level design, I think that not enough value is typically placed upon it. Take the supreme example of this; the 2-D Super Mario games-especially the original Super Mario Bros. This game has an extremely simple engine, which would do just about nothing interesting with a random design in mind. However, the engine provides a great challenge, and tests your reflexes brilliantly, since the levels themselves are brilliant. Back then, Nintendo had such superb level design, that one felt that each individual tile HAD to be there, and that it's absence would make an enormous difference. Additionally, one thought that adding an extra element to any screen would destroy its purity and scope. Luckily, they had retained this through the SNES era, and even through some of their N64 games, (although there we're talking polygons instead of tiles:)). Super Metroid is a great example of this. The planet is designed both to be believable, (a natural formation of crests and chasms) and enjoyable to go through (not too crammed and not unnecessarily large). Zero Mission looks like it has an almost random level structure to it. Whenever I venture into any of its rooms, I almost always get the impression, ''Was that necessary? Could that have been further apart? Is this not too confined for this world?''. Furthermore, Zero Mission lacks interesting environments. It has rock, more rock, and very boring straight metal passages (a la Fusion). To complement its (excellent) rock environments, Super Metroid had a breathtaking watery domain, an underground sandy abyss, and an abandoned ship, among others. All of these had their own themes attached to them. For instance, the watery domain was simply another life, as the level design changed to allow more space, and the fish and marine life complemented this world perfectly. The sandy world also felt unreal, and almost dream-like, due to its music and very detailed structure. Speaking of music, it was excellent in Super...and (you guessed it!) lackluster in Zero. The enemies of Super Metroid made the entire game more compelling, as there is a sense that over time, these creatures adapted to their harsh environments. In Zero Mission, the creatures are mostly bulky, boring, and drab, to 'complement' the bulky, boring, and drab rock setting it has. Zero Mission also seems to tease the player with environments which are not wholly present in the game. In a couple of instances, the game treats you to a puddle of water, while you only take so much as a dip in the entire game! Such a shame...since the physics involved in water could have changed the pace somewhat. Speaking of physics...Nintendo messed up again! First, with F-Zero Maximum Velocity, they change the ramming vehicles from the original F-Zero into a kind of imprecise bumper car abomination. Mario Kart Advance still has problems in the way the karts behave while colliding, and now Zero Mission...has Samus constantly performing in a manner which looks like she is on steroids, sat on a pin, and ate some hot peppers all at once. Her former grace/style from Super Metroid (along with refinement altogether) are officially dead, and have been dead since Fusion. Maybe if Nintendo treated the GBA as a serious platform, it would make polished games again (NES/SNES ports don't count!). The sad truth is that the average GBA gamer won't notice.

The faults of Zero Mission are not only due to its poor direction, but also to the GameBoyAdvance (and I'm not referring to its graphic capability). The GBA's screen ratio is not the same as a television's, and is much more wide than tall. Sadly, this may partially contribute to the zigzag level design mentioned earlier (since you can't see too much top or bottom). The lack of buttons means that the 'run' button was compromised, leaving Samus in 'rush' mode through the entire game. This takes quite a bit away from the style of the game, and throws the pacing off somewhat. There is an unnecessary sense of urgency created...this may seem like nitpicking, but a closer look will reveal this to be true. Sure-it's not the GAME's fault, but the game suffers as a result. It would not be fair to spare the faults of the game just because they are inevitable to what platform it runs on. Another shortcoming of the GBA is its sound capability. Although nice, it's no SNES. And unfortunately, it does not sound like the team responsible for Zero Mission have used the GBA's sound system to its full capacity (like it was used in Mario Kart Advance). The result is both a disappointing arrangement of instruments for music, while at the same time, mediocre sound effects. The final fault of the (original) GBA, is it's lack of a back-lit screen. This discouraged developers from using very dark colors, and it forces Zero Mission to sport a very inappropriate color scheme for just about everything. It looks too damn bright! [Perhaps the scene when Kraid vomited on everything before Samus' arrival was cut:)] And, unlike Metroid Fusion, where the scheme somewhat worked for the environment, in Zero Mission it simply does not fit (although it is darker than Fusion). Quite a shame indeed.

Well, it has been determined that Zero Mission does not retain the difficulty of the original, or the subtlety of Super. What does it have in exchange? Power-ups which were not present in the original! Unfortunately, like the spider-ball I hate so much in Metroid 2, the game forces the player to use some of these abilities extensively. Meaning, you'll often be jumping to hang at the ledge of platforms to elevate yourself. This is completely unnecessary, but, along with some useless morph-ball corridors, seems like Nintendo's way of increasing play-time. I think Nintendo's decision to include more power-ups was good, but the powers are required far too often in certain areas and very scarcely in others.

When it comes to reviews, there are two very common, yet wrong and strangely accepted ways of doing things. By saying this, I fault no one specifically-especially since only some people use them, yet the truth is that these two methods of reviewing are dishonest and mislead readers. Sometimes they are done without the writer's conscious knowledge, and sometimes they are deliberate. I can only hope that I will not be doing either of the two. The first, is the 'cool' status received from giving a game a much lower score than it reasonably deserves, which is always against what 'most' people give it. Such reviews often have phrases such as, ''it's just not as good as it could be'', or, ''it could not live up to the type'', and, ''I didn't think it was as good as they say.'' Of course, I'm not referring for the title of the review, but the actual phrases used in justifying the lower score. People praise themselves for going against the majority, since this supposedly makes them less blind and corrupt. The other shabby review scheme is at the opposite-it's what I call the 9/10 fallacy. Many people, who either spend too much money on a game (usually from collecting), have a rare game, or look at the game's worth as necessarily being the sum of its parts, (as mentioned above) often give the game a nine out of ten. This score guarantees the game 'classic' status, while still taking in some consideration for its faults. Needless to say, the game receiving such score is undeserving of it-and only usually obtains the score because of its price/rarity, and not its actual qualities. People do not want to spend hundreds of dollars on something which is not worthy, and boost the score. In Zero Mission, however, it has more to do with nostalgia. Zero Mission is deceiving...there is nothing which can immediately be seen as a major fault in the game, and I am sure that there are plenty of Zero players who scratch their heads and wonder why they are not enjoying the game. Such people might justify this to be due to their mood, or because they've done something like this before in Super Metroid, and they do not find it innovative anymore. Yet, Zero Mission differs greatly in execution compared to Super Metroid. Regardless, while evaluating the game on a scale which takes into consideration every separate element, the score will be higher, only because in this case it is much easier to warrant a higher score than a lower one. However, an honest player's intuition will reveal this game to be nothing more than an inferior attempt at capturing the classic feel of Super Metroid through Metroid 1's environment.

For this rating system, 5 is considered to be mediocre. In the 'Gameplay' section, 5 is considered to be a score which reflects an indifference to playing the game or not. Anything lower reflects an unwillingness to play the game, and anything higher reflects a desire to play the game.

GRAPHICS: 6/10
Adequate animation for enemies, and Samus animates nicely, but at an unrefined pace. The colors are quite unsuitable for the environments, as they are too bright overall, and do not make the enemies appear menacing. The level of detail in the foreground is significant, yet the backgrounds often have a different artistic style and do not blend very well with the rest of the game...they are quite stale and disappointing, like something out of a Flash game on the net (and with just as little detail). Sadly, the game does not use the 'cover parts of the background with darkness' effectively. However, the bosses look terrific, as do the nifty special effects like enemies breaking after being destroyed. There is not enough use of transparency, but lava makes the background swirl, which is a nice touch. Some more originality and imagination would have been appreciated.

MUSIC/SOUND: 6/10
Technical limitations aside, the music sounds quite nice, yet is too repetitive. The lack of variety in the game's areas have also served at limiting the reach of the music. In much of the modern method of game development, it is primarily the graphics that outline the atmosphere in a game-and the music is 'inspired' from that outline. In reality, the music is very much limited (although indirectly) by the graphics/environment of the game. The way it should be done, and the way one feels a game like Zelda: A Link to the Past is done, is that both the sound team and the graphics team collaborate on a certain theme. The graphics team creates a visual interpretation of that theme, and the sound team creates another interpretation of that theme. In other words, the sound team is not given the 'diluted' interpretation of the graphics team, but works from the core theme. Of course, they will cooperate after their main concepts are outlined, to make sure that the music will complement the on-screen action. Any old-school gamer must know that music is by far the greatest element of a game's atmosphere, and that a good musical score will usually not interfere with the graphics. Many times, this music will lead to a richer experience by compelling the player to use his or her imagination when viewing the graphics. Sadly, with the declining era of 2D games, imagination often becomes a thing of the past (no pun intended). The graphics do not leave much room for anything one might imagine, because a 3D game reveals all components of an object. Since music is done according to the screen, it sound uninspired. It is true that Zero Mission is not a 3D game, and perhaps my idea of game development is inaccurate, yet the music in this game never steps outside of the bounds of complementing what is on-screen. Instead of providing another dimension to the game, it simply seeks to strengthen an existing one. Although this is by no means bad, the very fact that the music is so limited in concept (lacking inspiration) should give one a good idea of how much it accomplishes. The sound is suitable, yet classic Metroid ambient sound effects are not used often enough. Also, there are a lack of echoing effects.

CONTROL: 9/10
The controls are very responsive, although the lack of buttons on the GBA prevent it from reaching the refinement of Super Metroid.

GAMEPLAY: 6/10
The game was designed for impatient players in mind. Samus moves at an unnecessarily-brisk speed sometimes, and the enemies do not provide much challenge or variety-both due to their limitations from the original Metroid, and from the unspectacular level design. The exploration component is maintained, yet instead of adding depth, destroying fragments of a level are too often the only way to proceed into the next area...taking away much of the excitement and reward for breaking into the levels. This, coupled with the GBA's small vertical screen size, further serve to add a claustrophobic feeling to the game. (Hint: Metroid is about fairly large open environments, with secrets in small places, not vice-versa!). Abilities are needlessly abused to proceed further, and the curves on the floor are just for show. The game's atmosphere is somewhat tarnished by its brighter colors, its lack of variety in level design, and the fact that the Chrozo statues keep on telling you where to go. To the game's credit, there are some nice surprises, and the final sequence is different and a refreshing break from the usual gameplay. As a side note-the miniscule parasite creatures you encounter early in the game are done very nicely. This is the kind of detail and innovation that Zero Mission could use more of. Oh-and it could have used more metroids to fight-especially earlier on. It might have been nice to have some metroids stalk you at various portions in the game, similar to the red fish in Donkey Kong Country 3, where the player must distract the fish by swimming close to other enemies (which the fish will consume) and thus buy some time. I didn't think that Donkey Kong Country 3 was all that great either, but the concept might have worked here. Something new would have been appreciated. This game is further proof that a solid engine is not enough for good gameplay. One needs to 'feed' that engine with challenging level design, and interesting enemies. I wanted to play the game mostly in hopes of finding new, better areas and monsters, as well as seeing the game's events unfold. Fortunately, as mentioned before, the final area was pretty cool.

STORY: 6/10
Metroid has never been about telling a story in a text-based format. Rather, the player's imagination and the game's premise should have all the elements of a great story. The story in Metroid is what the player experiences, rather than what the game tells you. In this respect, I think Zero Mission did neither too badly nor too favorably. The intro sequence (before the title screen) is quite poorly done, and seems too typical. A more classical approach would have been better. I think that the use of text serves to hurt the game more than to help it...without it to begin with, the player would not expect more. It is not consistent in providing new bits of information, but the detail in the game's worlds do help in the story department, by adding richness. Also, the final sequence of the game, although not without its cliches, is quite good at providing some background information for Samus, without destroying her mysterious nature.

Overall: 6/10
I mostly enjoyed playing this game, and was sufficiently entertained at the end so as not to have been sorry for completing it. Despite not being bad...life is just too short for this kind of thing.

Final Comments
I have found the Metroid series as a whole to be very overrated. The first game was groundbreaking in its day, but it has aged very badly, as opposed to other classics of the time such as Mario Bros. The second game on the original GameBoy had little redeeming qualities. It is the third game which is a true masterpiece, although its follow-up (Fusion) was not quite as good. Zero Mission is by far greater than the first two installments, speaking strictly from an impartial standpoint, which does not take into consideration ever-changing technology or the groundbreaking innovations of the first in the series. I would rank it with Fusion at 2nd place in the 2D series; Fusion has a more engaging premise and story, while Zero Mission has less constraints and a much better final area. I have mentioned the Metroid legacy, because I find it strange that so many people take it in such high regard. Many people consider the series to be as good as its best component-Super Metroid-which is entirely false. Nevertheless, the expectations for this game are nothing less than another Super Metroid. Give me brunette Samus any day:)

The bottom line: In Super Metroid, you ARE Samus...in Zero Mission, you PLAY as Samus. If you want to play the best in the series, then by all means play the non-emulated Super Metroid, if you have a decent TV and speakers. If you want the absolute best in the genre, then pick up Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, which sits firmly at the top 10 list of best games ever made.

NOTE: I am not biased against 3D games, and have many favorites set in the third dimension. However, I believe that it is much more difficult to create an excellent 3D game than it is to create an excellent 2D game, and that doing so requires considerably more development time. I also applaud Nintendo for giving us a (mostly) new Metroid game, instead of making a lazy port of Super Metroid-it's just that Metroid: Zero Mission did not aim very high, and thus did not achieve a great deal.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/04